April 18, 2003 - Swarthmore College: In 1973 Bill Weber and Amy Vedder were Peace Corps volunteers in eastern Congo, with much more to learn before we could make any meaningful contribution to conservation.

From Bill Weber and Amy Vedder, In the Kingdom of Gorillas: Fragile Species in a Dangerous Land, Simon & Schuster, 2001. Reprinted with permission of the authors. See W.D. Ehrhart’s [’73] feature “The World Is Watching” about the Webers.

Go ahead. Sit next to him. Adrien deSchryver’s suggestion was part tease, part dare. Amy hesitated, then smiled as she began to crawl toward Casimir, a massive silverback scowling at us from beneath a tree about thirty feet away. Surprised by her eager response, deSchryver grabbed Amy by the belt and pulled her back to his side. For the next thirty minutes, we watched Casimir and his family of gorillas from a respectful distance of fifteen to twenty yards. Thick bamboo limited our views to isolated body parts. The gorillas tolerated our presence, but several stayed completely out of sight and all were clearly nervous. Occasional screams ripped the still mountain air. Powerful smells and strange plants enhanced the sensory stew. We were elated.

Our pygmy guide, Patrice, was calm—seemingly bored—throughout our time with the gorillas. But on our hike back to park headquarters, he grew more animated when another creature caught his eye. Patrice stalked his tiny prey until it led to an invisible target. Locating the entryway to the bee’s nest, he ignored repeated stings as he ripped open the rich ground. Within a minute, he returned to our group with a wide grin on his face and large chunks of dripping honeycomb in his hands.... Soon our faces were smeared with an indescribably exotic mix of flavors and substances. On that late summer day in 1973, we entered the land of gorillas and honey.

Five years later, we would experience the wonder of sitting peacefully among mountain gorillas in Rwanda—and the awesome responsibility of trying to save their population from extinction at the hands of humans. But in 1973 we were Peace Corps volunteers in eastern Congo, with much more to learn before we could make any meaningful contribution to conservation.

We met in 1969 at Swarthmore College and married three years later. Two kids from small towns in upstate New York, we shared the best and worst of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The King and Kennedy assassinations, Vietnam, Kent State, acid rock, Earth Day, Women’s Lib, the Generation Gap, and seemingly endless cultural conflict. Through much of that turbulent time, Swarthmore’s Quaker tradition was a calming influence. While other campuses went up in flames, our passions were doused with a smothering blanket of Quaker understanding—and the admonition to use our learning and experience to go forth and make the world a better place. Following graduation, our budding interest in conservation and an urge for adventure led us to Africa via the Peace Corps. We weren’t qualified for specialist positions in parks or wildlife management, so we joined more than one hundred other volunteers to be trained as the first teachers sent to Congo, which was then known as Zaire....

In many ways, we were fortunate that we began our work in Africa as teachers. If we had started in conservation, with strong pressure to save some park or species, we might have been quickly pulled into adversarial positions with local people and government officials. Instead, teaching brought us into constant contact with Africans and their view of the world. We saw how our students learned and came to understand reasoning and values that shaped their perceptions. We gained firsthand experience working with the dysfunctional Congolese education bureaucracy—and saw how pervasive corruption could crush individual initiative at a very young age. We became fluent in French and learned Swahili, a regional Bantu language that opened up a rich and rewarding world of contact with the large majority of local people who spoke no European language. Most of all, we were able to take our time and absorb the African way of life and culture that surrounded us. We tried to follow the advice of a Jesuit priest who had addressed our Peace Corps group toward the end of our formal training. You will see many strange and different things over the next two years, he said. Always keep a question mark in front of your eyes and ask “why” before you judge something you see as wrong just because it is different. It was excellent advice.

From Bill Weber and Amy Vedder, In the Kingdom of Gorillas: Fragile Species in a Dangerous Land, Simon & Schuster, 2001. Reprinted with permission of the authors. See W.D. Ehrhart’s [’73] feature in this issue:“The World That Is Not Just Ours.”

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Story Source: Swarthmore College

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